Goodbye and Hello: Grief and Yoga by Kathryn Merrifield

July 13^th, 2007 is the anniversary of my dad’s death.  It was a Friday – Friday the 13^th – a kind of retribution that would have made him laugh as he admits to doing his part in karma.  He found humor in the way things settled into their place.  Had he lived through that, or was able to talk about his death, he would have liked to hear that he died on a day known for bad luck and a teen horror movie franchise.

Five months after my beautiful Venna Rose was born (March 10, 2006) I was on the phone with my dad, griping about injury and its effect on my fitness endeavors.  I spent a lot of time riding a bike, doing something I never had the confidence or capacity to do as a child or young adult.  Quite honestly, the only sport I ever tried was softball and that was because my mom’s business, The Designing Women of La Canada, California, sponsored my softball team.  I stood out in left field bored out of my mind.  That was my experience with sports.    I remember running after one ball.  It was awful, and for anyone who needs another characterization of myself as a young girl:  glasses, wrecked teeth that required massive orthodontic intervention (thank you to my mother for that and everything) and a chubby frame that was the target of an almost irreparable amount of bullying and teasing. 

That said, I clearly recall a conversation between me and my dad.  I was driving the Jeep on the way out on a Saturday morning, bored and admittedly unmotivated and lonely from swimming by myself and discouraged about my injured right knee that prevented me from running and cycling.  Whining to him, I mentioned the availability of an astanga yoga class that I was considering without the least bit of conviction.  I exercise to relieve myself of a fidgety nature, so I can sit for the periods of time required of work and writing and to clarify my thoughts.  Lying on the floor and stretching were simply preemptive maneuvers toward sleep at that point in my life.  And, that is what I thought of yoga then, though I did spend a full semester of a college year on the subject, committed academic I was. 

Ultimately, my dad encouraged me to give yoga a chance so my car headed toward The Wainwright House where the class was held.  To my surprise, it was difficult enough that I broke a sweat and left relaxed and calm.  Suzanne Jagoda was my first yoga teacher (since remarried as Simchowitz) and she was both personable and funny and led her class through the entire first series of astanga yoga while focusing our attention on pranayama (breathing), asanas (poses) and root locks.  That led to my discovery of vinayasa yoga and more learning…  And, more breathing.  Under stress, I hold my breath. Thinking, I hold my breath.  It takes a bit of yoga to realize just how much I told my breath and how much my mind makes me do this.  A strange stress response that brings to mind those times as a child that I would hide and hold my breath so no one could hear me and, therefore, not find me hiding safe under the bed.

I continued with yoga from that point on – though I’ve had to stop here and there to allow for my low back to mend and sciatica to ease – the residual effect of three pregnancies and c-sections within four years (I love babies to the point that it’s just purely ridiculous).  My right shoulder is also a bit glitchy, the result of swimming without proper form and not putting the energy of down dog in my upper back without hyperextending my arms or pulling my shoulders to my ears. 

Grief is always tricky and has no respect for form.  Grief takes time and patience.  It’s temperamental and doesn’t care what you have to do, that you may be required to smile when to do so feels like lying.

Like a dutiful researcher trying to understand myself, I read a book that helped me through my dad’s death.  I was seven months pregnant when he died, and at that point I wasn’t practicing yoga or much of anything apart from bobbing around in the water in the Rye YMCA pool, going to physical therapy to ease crippling sciatic pain and taking care of my two children who, at the time, were (let’s see…) two-and-a-half and sixteen months old.  I barely had much time to think.

I started most days with a phone conversation with my dad, despite the fact that he lived in California.  He, my older brother, Lewis and I share an early riser body clock.  It likes the morning.  Over a year prior to this, my dad’s girlfriend at the time, Suzanne, told me that he was again diagnosed with prostate cancer.  It had been in remission for approximately eight years but returned too late for detection and prevention.  He’d been given a timetable and a schedule for chemotherapy.  It had already made its way to his bones.  He fractured his hip but rarely complained about a thing, reporting his physical condition incidentally.

I was too far away to do anything but care for my own family.  It makes me sad still to understand the limits of my affect on this situation, but it is what it is.  That is something my dad always said.  We did talk every day no matter what.  And, I suppose yoga helped me through it as it helps me through things I don’t know are even on mind until I get to the mat and try to clear my head to think of breathing and positioning and let everything go. Pigeon pose seems to be the most informative regarding my emotional state.  It opens the hips and releases sciatic pain and with that comes whatever is trapped there for the past week.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve positioned myself there, one leg bent in front of me perpendicular to the mat in the shape of a figure four, leaning forward and feeling the pain bubble up inside my chest as tears.  Then trying to suppress it, I felt more pain.  It was a process. 

I miss my dad like any child misses a parent when they’re gone despite their flaws and transgressions and basic weirdness.  I am a parent now, so I accept my weirdness after a too-long period as a perfectionistic and over-achieving parent who mostly drove herself bonkers.

I take myself with all of my imperfections, anatomical, spiritual, psychological, to the mat.  Any good yoga teacher (most of mine are) will help a distracted disciple like me focus her intentions, dedicate her practice to that thing that will take my mind away from practice or to the one thing that will make the time more meaningful.

The days that I have a hard time with shoulder stand alignment, I think of my dad reaching down from his place in heaven (or just within the earth’s atmosphere – not too specific about this) and pulling at my toes to make me straighter, line my hips up over my shoulders so when I lower my legs into plow, the proper alignment allows me to achieve the full expression of the pose.  It’s taken me over six years to get my toes to the floor.  And, still they sometimes hover almost touching but not quite.

I know that yoga is about letting go and letting in.  It’s about patience and learning and understanding that every day is different.  That, despite the stages of grief, loss is indelible and time makes it easier but it will never really be gone.

After my dad’s death, I read a book called “On Grief and Grieving.”  It made me understand that the stages of grief weren’t something I could ever escape; not the denial, anger, bargaining, depression or acceptance.  Well, perhaps the acceptance, but while grief manifests itself in stages, I’ve experienced it cyclically.  Most of these stages were put off by the birth of my third child which occurred on October 18^th, 2007.  Leo was born and it was only until my back completely went out and I developed a still unidentified stomach issue that required medicine.  A few other maladies also ganged up on me, among them depression.  I realized the beautiful introduction of Leo into the world also meant I’d put off feeling the absence of my dad.

I don’t much like July anymore.  He was supposed to visit on July 11^th, 2007.  I’d planted New Guinea Impatiens at the base of the two topiaries I’d managed to keep alive since my mom and stepfather bought for me three years prior – an attempt to liven up the balcony of my former apartment just after the birth of my first child.  Despite my not-even-a-little-bit-green-thumb, they’re still alive.  Hence the name, “Evergreens.” 

I wanted him to rest and enjoy the deck.  I wanted him to tell me again how appreciative he was of my suggestion that he get in he pool after the cancer ate through his hip, and how the excess weight that he carried around with him made the pain more severe.  He thanked me for that suggestion just like I thanked him for encouraging me to take yoga despite my fear at the slowness of it. 

Slow is not always easy.  As a matter of fact, slow healing, slow thinking, slow breathing… It’s all good no matter how much I brace myself against it and push it forward.  Yoga makes it flow and move.  It makes it move in a way a runner’s high won’t.  I still love my endorphins and my freedom, but I also need to temper it with an exercise in balance.  I need to make room in limbs and my heart to let the bad feelings out and the good in.  It’s rather simply stated but not at all simple.

Lucky me that I’ve also had the opportunity to mine the gifts of my yogi friends and teachers who will contribute more to this sometime soon.  It’s been a bit tricky to nail them down but I need to post this preliminary piece for the sake of healing, for the sake of my practice, for dedicating today’s work on the mat -with each release, each letting go, there is a letting in - a “hello” after a “goodbye.”  A “yes” that follows a “no.”

A third would be for the sake of the rhythm of threes, but I have to say it anyway.

A birth after a death.